ABSTRACT Support is requested for a Keystone Symposia conference entitled Advances in Neurodegenerative Disease Research and Therapy, organized by Drs. Li Gan, Leonard Petrucelli and Morgan H. Sheng. The conference will be held June 17-21, 2018 at Keystone Resort, Colorado. As the world population ages, neurodegenerative diseases are becoming the new epidemic in both developed and developing countries. Progress made in human genetics has revealed increasingly more disease-associated genes for Alzheimer?s disease (AD), Parkinson?s disease (PD), Frontotemporal dementia (FTD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other neurodegenerative disorders. These discoveries have linked neurodegenerative diseases with several common key biological processes that have so far been under-studied, including RNA metabolism, protein trafficking and innate immune responses. By focusing on these emerging areas in neurodegenerative disease research, this conference seeks to challenge the current research paradigms and to inspire in-depth discussion and exploration. The program assembles leaders from various fields to facilitate interactions between groups using diverse approaches, by providing a platform to cross-fertilize ideas and to encourage new collaborations that could lead to novel mechanisms and therapeutic targets against neurodegenerative diseases.